


Why do I fight? To protect home? Family?

by Congar



Series: WoW Pandas [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Congar/pseuds/Congar
Summary: Pandaren sketch by Tarable.





	Why do I fight? To protect home? Family?

**Author's Note:**

> [Pandaren sketch by Tarable.](https://tarableart.tumblr.com/post/183104307956/i-made-some-gift-art-for-someone-ive-been)

  


The grip around Armageddon’s hilt tightens, squeezing out a stream of blood from the overflowing gauntlet that runs down the length of the large and wicked sword molded by undeath to take life. Like early spring in the forest valleys of Grizzly Hills, the still warm blood fills the weathered crack in the profane steel with torrents of fluid as the melting glaciers from up north does the flowing fjords. The red quickly melds with the glowing enchantment summoning illusory drops of similar life-force. From the death around the exhausted warrior you would never have guessed that it was illusory. Less so now that the squeezed blood begins to pool at the tip of the sword pushed down into the soaked mud of the sprawling battlefield.

A corrupted support for the climbing vine of blood upon soil filled with fresh corpses serving as both unwilling compost and as a willing reminder.

That everything’s just a blur amid all this sweat, blood, and screams.

And this damn moon is giving Aresina such a splitting headache. She can weather it during a regular full moon, but this dark, unnatural eclipse is too much. It takes the edge off the sour pain from her more physical wounds though, which is a bit of a silver lining. She still has to breathe in deep through her clenched teeth to suppress it despite the silver. What she needs is gold, if not an emerald lining to not feel like the death around her.

The air is thick with the coppery stench of clot and viscera, the miasma that follows battle. It heralds the harvest of Bwonsamdi, come to collect what’s promised.

“’Dis moon be not’ing like me own red one back home. Same aura of death, I be admitting da’ much, but it be different to the way da’ cola’ dances with da’ shadows and de howlin’ spirits crying in confusia’ as to why dey be not feelin’ da warmth of da’ livin’ no more. You agree with me, warria’? As if da’ sun be raisa’ from da’ west instead of da’ east, ya know? I’ll hav’ to ask how to make it all dark like dis. Would make for a bit more atmospher’ in Nazmir, no? Spruce up the Necropolis with a bit a corpse blue instead a’ blood red?”

The metallic taste from the sweaty and worn neck-guard could never produce such an encompassing and overwhelming odor that permeates any and all armor be it cloth, leather, mail, or plate. With the neck-guard unhooked and bent down so that the seasoned warrior can catch some sense of breath, its foul stench is lost like the faintest hint of properly cooked food in Nori’s blackened kitchen.

How many souls left on her debt? Aresina’s lost count, which was probably part of Bwonsamdi’s plan, now that she can think about it for once.

“Som’ brains amid ya brutes, ey warria’? Ha ha ha! Ya still be owin’ me though, I’ll give ya’ that much as a hint.”

The breath dragged after hours of intense battle is rugged, filled with agony and hurt. From the blunt impact suffered on the chest, making itself aware as Aresina drags the foul air inside her through cracked lips curled back in pain. Her teeth expose their glistening white, the only part left clean on her. Her mask, orange-brown in the brief moments of peace, is now caked in the same viscous crimson snaking down her sword. When it’s fresh it comes off her fur easily, but once its begun to dry there’s only so much soap can do. Magic even less. Priests can keep their own robes shining and pure with the help of the Light, but when Aresina asks for some cleaning around her face suddenly it’s all a mystery how they keep their clothing clean. The Light sure works in mysterious ways, its wielders even more so.

And if Blood Elves could harness their vanity as weapons this war would’ve been over before it even began.

And like hell is Aresina gonna ask a damn Warlock about personal hygiene anytime soon. Mages cleaning with arcane just leaves this annoying residue that itches when things get sweaty, which it always does.

Aresina runs the back of her bloody hand over her head, lifting it up in vain as to not disturb her long pony tail she lost at the battle of Lordaeron, although that was to more than just foul smelling guts. She’d grown it out ever since her days back at...

“How come you always manage to dirty yourself where your mask is not, Aresina? Child, what am I gonna do with you? One more time with this and you’ll be living at the monastery for the rest of your life. They have those great big baths and hot springs, which is the only way for your grim to fall off you if continue like you do.”

The snicker escaping the blood-soaked Pandaren is gravely, more so than what’s left of the Azerite infused elemental sprawled like pebbles on a beach in a collapsed pile in front of her. The chuckle chafes down her throat as she swallows it, agitating as if downing a barrel filled with flames.

No wonder all the Brewmasters have deeper voices than Thorim. She could go for some right about now though. Preferably some hard liquor. She never thought she could get tired of beer, but when Odin has to celebrate so many times a day…

Some of dad’s home-brewed carrot whiskey would be perfect right about now.

How would Aresina’s parents react if they saw her now? Reeking of the horrors of war and looking its spitting image as well. The stench alone enveloping her even the most ancient of Forsaken would take a step back from. Nathanos in particular would retract his nose into his skull, although that wouldn’t really be any different than how he normally greets anyone else than the Warchief. The miasma is as much from the Pandaren herself as it is from the death around her. She’s gotten used to it. It’s no longer making her grunt in disgust.

However, she struggles to see the positive in that.

The crackling energy from the nearby ridge of Azerite swirls with colors as the pooling blood approaches it. Sparkling trails of yellow and purple leap out of the manifested Azerite crystals like fireworks as blood begins to seep into the somber pool. A faint sense of wrong takes root from it. An aura of sorts.

Blood magic, must be. Even here in Darkshore it’s prevalent. She should probably do something about that.

Aresina just needs a breather first. Something’s cracked inside her chest. Must be that damn frostbolt she took from that mage. She has to-

“Her wounds, champion. You must tend to them!”

Her wounds?

“Azeroth begs for your aid, champion!”

The Heart of Azeroth, given to her in trust from that diamond-encrusted dwarven king, begins to hum, almost quaking around the warrior’s neck. It tugs at the back of her neck where she’s locked it together, urging her towards the disturbed Azerite sparkling impatiently.

“The wounds! Seal them!”

After unhooking the Heart from her neck, the warrior lets it sit in her other gauntlet filled with blood yet unsqueezed. The blue and yellow swirls in the crystal at the center of the golden medallion like a whirlpool, moving around like the Maelstorm during a bad storm.

A worse storm than normal, that is.

The Heart’s chain hangs limb between the warrior’s fingers, flowing gently with each heavy inhale she takes. Each painful breath warps her reflection in the polished crystal. She can barely recognize herself with this much blood on her.

Or maybe she recognizes this visage of her more than her clean one?

“You sure you need that trash still, richmon? Hek hek hek hek!”

Jani...

Same answer as before, yes she does. Just gotta ignore the inquisitive, leathery muzzle peeking over Aresina’s shoulder with eyes hungrily latched onto the Heart.

Thick sanguine liquid begins to timidly explore the crinkles of the entrusted medallion as the fingers of the grimacing Pandaren warrior clutch around its golden rim, now a deep orange from blood stretching like slick tendrils towards the center crystal.

The Heart of Azeroth…

How many wounds opened on Aresina to seal one for Azeroth? What for? The greater good? To save Azeroth from itself? From her children born on it? From the Alliance and the Horde?

A lesser hurt for a larger heal?

“Shen-zin Su, he’s...”

Aresina sighs, relaxing her grip on what’s she’s sworn to carry. She’s been here before.

“He’s dying!”

Back on the Wandering Isle…

How long has it been now?

“Our greatest trials yet lay before us.”

Years. That’s all Aresina can remember. It’s been years. It’s been long.

She stops at the foot of the fallen elemental. It’s large, rocky body still looms a shadow on her as she holds up the Heart of Azeroth against the glittering cut she gouged out of it with her sword.

How that old monk was right all those years ago.

“Anger will lead you nowhere, child. Find peace, find yourself.”

Back home she...

…

Home?

Is that what Aresina fights for?

A home that saw her anger and rage as something to be put aside? Something the other students could get over and be better off for it. Their strength came not from rage, but from their balance. They could find their balanced center, but Aresina could not.

Hers wasn’t within reach.

The rolling hills, painted in both stone and grass with strokes so patient and joyous. How could someone look at those and not find calm? How could one not gaze at the blue horizon stretching for eternity and find solemn peace in the glistening shimmer and mile long shadows stretching across the bobbing waves during those timeless pink sunsets? Like shadow theater about legends of old it inspired the other disciples! 

But for Aresina?

“You stand in the shadows of your peers, my student.”

That she did. The training targets situated below the meditating grounds where she’d spend time when the others went to meditate. Their backs replacing the bright morning sun, casting her training into an early night. The occasional head huffing from that judgmental hill when she and the wooden training target would grunt from her attacks. 

“How come?”

Angry necks turned when she’d knock the training dummies over, sending them tumbling into the racks of training staff that would play the loudest of percussion. 

Wasn’t it obvious why she was alone? 

“Is it?”

Master Shang Xi, beard solid and sharp from his waxing philosophical. Legends say he carved the monastery with it. Aresina didn’t doubt it.

“It’ll do you good to study with the master, child. You can’t learn much more from your ‘ol parents here. This isn’t your life.”

“Farm work from such an aspiring Pandaren such as you? Your father and I don’t want you squandering yourself like this. We’ll always love you, never forget it.”

Dad, mom…

They knew, they always knew. Aresina wasn’t what they wanted. She wasn’t a Pandaren fit for the life she was set to inherit. A child that was brash and quick to anger. Like a long forgotten pot of water on an eternal flame, always boiling over and sizzling. Overcooking the vegetables brought to her, leaving them bitter and resentful. Scowling looks as she scolded the people around her when they got too close.

“Master Shang Xi is the one you seek, child. He will help you realize who you are. Not one of us, but one of you. Only you.”

“The you we’d never want to be someone else.”

They’d always been patient. Always been Pandaren. How could Aresina be their child? A moon birthed by two stars, merely being a Pandaren by reflecting from her parents and not shining on her own in the image they so warmly radiated.

“How is it obvious that you’re down here and not up there, Aresina, my student?”

Why did Master Shang Xi choose her? Why not one of the others?

“Azeroth has chosen you to be her champion!”

Why did Azeroth choose her? Why not one of the others?

Aresina looks down at the blue crystal eagerly absorbing the liquid glimmers spewing out from the slain elemental.

It has the same color as the sky had that day. The gust from the Azerite is as breezy as the wind was too.

“What is it you see from up here, my student?”

She saw a rope. Dangerously taut. The only thing keeping the hot air balloon from drifting into the open sea.

“It’s only when taut that it serves its function, young one. Now, share with me what you see of our island, our home. Don’t mind the flames, they won’t hurt you.”

Hills, not rolling, but roaring. Roaring to be challenged. Roaring that they will be forever stood tall and steadfast, taunting anyone to climb them. Aresina felt anger at the mockery the hills would lay upon her as their large shadows would cast her childhood home into darkness, forcing her to abandon her play as she couldn’t see her toys. As the wind would pass through between the hills, mountains to Aresina when young, they would hiss their ridicule at her for not being strong enough to climb them.

She hated them!

“Do you want to climb them?”

Did she?

Yes, yes she did.

But why would she do that? For what reason besides childish want?

“Why don’t we find out?”

And then Master Shang Xi pushed her out of the hot air balloon’s basket.

“Hm...” the warrior emits with her brow deeply furrowed, almost catching a colorful spark of Azerite in the deepened folds of her forehead.

She’d forgotten about that part. Her free hand flexes uncomfortably as she remembers the burn that taut rope gave her paws as she held on for dear life. The hot air balloon did fly away when the rope disconnected from Aresina crashing into the wooden stake that anchored it, so she was right about that, if anything. The balloon with her master in it didn’t drift off towards the sea never to be seen again though. As if helping an old friend, the wind gently carried Master Shang Xi over towards the hills.

Aresina looked down on her paws. They were hurting, but there was a small lake between the training grounds and the hills. She could calm the pain there.

Because she’d sure as hell was about to feel even more soon enough. The mockery of the rockery would be no more!

In the far distance, swords are clashing. The distinct song of healing straining to be heard over the blades struck echoing soon after, praying for life amid the field of dead. Last rites given to the final gasps.

Praying one less joins in the field.

Only one less though. Never two.

Bwonsamdi always gets one.

“Means one less fo’ you, warria’. Why ya’ be complainin’? It not be like ya’re gonna rememba’ dat one specifically fo’ long before it becomes anotha’ of da’ many! Ha ha ha ha ha!”

The burnt smell from the flares and fires by mages and warlocks alike replace the copper in Aresina’s lungs. The same warm gusts surrounding her like the brazier of Master Shang Xi’s hot air balloon as he landed next to her collapsed and exhausted body on top of the hills of, to her no longer, derision.

“What do you see from here from the hills you heard roaring for you to climb them, my student?”

Water!

She was offered some.

Water she then also saw when she mustered enough strength to sit back up and with her clinging hair brushed out of her eyes and mask. A sea stretching far beyond what her sweat-irritated eyes could see. Waves crashing into Shen-zin Su as if desperately crawling up his scales before falling back down.

“Anything else?”

No.

“No?”

No.

“That’s fine.”

Should Aresina have seen more?

“If you see it all today then what is left to explore tomorrow?”

So there was more for her to see?

“Why do you think that?”

Because she doesn’t see it like the rest? Any of the other students would’ve walked up the stairs less than an angry stone toss away from where she climbed! A stone toss that almost knocked a brewmaster’s casket of newly brewed beer off his shoulder, throwing an equally angry look back in retaliation before muttering a swear. Aresina doesn’t see the serenity of the water. Her eyes are just as red and chafed with salt now as when she decided to dip her head in the glistening late afternoon sea to maybe find out what the big fuss was about. She didn’t find anything! Just an infinite depth assaulting her unprotected eyes. She doesn’t see the painted hills! Not even when she’s standing on the soft canvas of the sprawling grass and beds of flowers she can’t see them!

She was offered more water which she greedily drank.

“No, you see the hills as roaring, and the water crashing against our home. This the others don’t see.”

Aresina still has the coin her master gave her after that outrage, the one he flipped in the air with his thumb. The distant duel has the same metallic ring to it as when Master Xi flung it on that distant day. It landed flat in his hand as if destined to. 

Heads.

“A coin is worthless without its other side. We Pandaren have both heads and tails, just like the coin, but some favor heads while others favor tails. Seeing eye to eye is only one of our senses, and we both heard the crashing of the waves and the roaring of the hills, didn’t we?”

Again he flipped it, steering it to land in Aresina’s hand that she closed into a startled fist.

She held it close for a second before opening it.

Tails.

“Rage is the side of the coin most would face down, but your coin landed differently. You’ve faced your rage all your life. It is something you have to make yours. Do this, and you will understands yourself. Balance is only in the middle if the support is in the middle.”

The toll of the dinner bell rang out throughout the hills. Rolling invitingly throughout the taunting roars, clanging calmly along the crashing waves. Aresina helped Master Shang Xi up on his feet.

“Giving in to your emotions makes them dangerous, but giving them out makes them inspiring. However, you have to understand them before others can. Control your feelings, my student, and where you pass, greatness will follow.”

Aresina flips the coin herself now, to the unblinking attention of Jani. 

Tails.

Again.

Not really a surprise, to be honest.

“You have so many of those, richmon. Why don’t you share some?”

Nope. Aresina is not gonna make that mistake again. Three silvers and fifty copper to be ‘blessed’ with a lingering loa poking his grinning smile into Aresina’s pockets each moment she turns away.

Luckily Jani still responds the same to Aresina snapping her scowling head around with her sword raised to strike as he always does, disappearing with a fading cackle.

The warrior tucks her sentimental coin back inside her armor. The infusion from the Azerite cluster is finished now, but out of the corner of Aresina’s eye more remains to be absorbed.

“Y’er her champion, warrior. Save Azeroth!”

Not even the warriors rugged and weary sigh can drown out the hollow echo from the diamond king’s voice.

Is this the greatness her late master meant? Being gifted the metaphorical heart of the very world she’s spent her life traversing and protecting?

Aresina remembers the day of her graduation. Her quest to seek out the elemental spirits. It’s similar, in a way. This time though, she’s killing elementals to save the land instead of rescuing them.

And for all that’s happened, she prefers today over yesterday. 

She has a home now. A home with a family that knows what she is. Knows who she is, and accepts it, strengthens it.

“It is a boat… a whole airship! That’s a bigger thorn than I was expecting.”

How strange it is for Aresina to think back to that day. To those strange creatures that stood upright. The large bovine one, with a voice so deep and supple…

“Korga Strongmane, once prisoner of the Alliance, now free and woefully unarmed Tauren. Good to meet you, Pandaren.”

Oh the pleasure was entirely on Aresina’s side when the two first locked eyes. Her heart still flusters when she thinks back to that Tauren.

Either that or she’s bleeding internally.

Not as much as Shen-zin did externally though. Although, Aresina didn’t feel fear back then. She didn’t feel that hope was lost, nor distraught over her home being invaded.

“Well, we’ve got a master person-finder here, eh Aresina? We’re on it.”

And she was.

Her rage when she fought back against the invading Deepscale wasn’t grimaced at, it was celebrated. Her anger when the Deepscale leader proclaimed his early victory, was fuel to keep her strong. Her heavy breathing after her foe lay defeated before her, congratulated.

But only from one side.

Even as she carried the humans on her back, deciding for herself to go back for more of the Alliance’s fallen and medical supplies, they still hesitated to take them from her.

Even as she gave her body to protect their healers as they mended what they’d wrought upon Shen-zin, they still took a beat to restore her gashes so she could continue.

Because she did all of that through her rage, through her anger, and through the red haze that descended over her eyes. Shen-zin survived because Master Shang Xi’s legacy that Aresina proved she’d learned from him!

And the Alliance scoffed at it! They saw her as a brute! Unrefined and-

A hand was placed on her shoulder.

“I know the anger inside of you, Pandaren.”

The Orc.

Provisioner Drog.

“My people have known the haze that’s burning inside your eyes since even before we were enslaved by the Burning Legion. We’ve suffered from it, but we’ve also learned from it. The Horde was built from and by people like you, molded by a common desire for strength and honor. We’ve learned, and so we can teach you to harness your rage into strength. Among us you will understand honor, and be honored. Your unbounded anger will be forged into a might blade that you will wield for battle and for glory!”

That’s what Aresina had promised her master she’d stride for. To understand herself. The Horde understood her, so with them she could understand herself.

The Alliance…

They didn’t understand.

They only saw the center. They believed the two sides of the coin were both heads.

“The Worgen have history akin to yours, Pandaren.”

Delora Lionheart only said so because of the fur.

“They too had to learn how to control their curse. Their unyielding rage that they’d been cursed with has given them wisdom. They know how to control themselves. They know how to direct their anger. They can teach you, Pandaren.”

And that’s why the Alliance will never understand.

Because to the Alliance, it’s a curse turned to strength.

But to the Horde, it’s always been a strength.

It’s not something that needs to be suppressed, it has always been a part of Aresina. It’s always been there for her, not against her. She just didn’t understand.

But the Horde could help her understand it.

The same smug feeling of pride of suppressing an evil is as irritating coming from a Demon Hunter as it does from the Alliance.

Aresina hasn’t sacrificed anything because she’s never had too! There was nothing to sacrifice since there wasn’t anything was bad for her. The way she saw it differently from the others.

Not wrongly.

Differently.

For the Horde it is different, and for the Alliance it is wrong.

Master Shang Xi planted the seed, and the Horde has nurtured it so that it could take root.

And Aresina’s grown because of that.

The Horde is her family.

And it’s her family she fights for.

“Ya’ take dat pair a’ gnomes down an’ I’ll be only countin’ dem as one.”

Aresina throws up an eyebrow against the leaned back loa of death slowly putting his folded arms behind his grinning head.

“I just be sayin’,” he shrugs before rolling his head over towards a crackling shift in hue emerging next to him. He rolls his head back towards Aresina, who begins gripping her hilt of her sword again. “’Ol friend of yours?”

The shimmering image of Bwonsamdi is ripped apart by a spinning fireball leaving a bright orange streak across the ground. The startled warrior manages to just barely dodge the fiery magic, but in her hectic tilt back she drops the swirling medallion in her hand.

With a swift kick she manages to knock Jani away before he dives onto the Heart for the millionth time. Aresina quickly fastens her entrusted necklace before pushing up her neck-guard that hides her determined frown from her fiery adversary.

“He be countin’ as two thou’.”

The Pandaren opposite Aresina is hunched forward with hands ablaze of flames that dance around his fingers and palms. With each furious growl the fires pulsates just as intensively, casting the heated grimace and mask in an oscillating intensity in rhythm with his heavy breathing. Through the flames Aresina spots the heinous blue of an Alliance tabard, its golden lion now dark orange from the flames reflecting in its embroidery.

“His stuff be mine, yes richmon?”

“Hek hek hek,” Aresina gently cackles inside her red neck-guard. The echo from within widens the smile of the lizard loa withdrawing his head from over her shoulder. 

Aresina pulls out her sword from the stained ground with a rapid tug, dragging with her a severed Dranei arm that she wipes off on her shin.

The fire on the mage’s hands flicker for a moment as he watches the loose arm bounce on the hard ground, its fingers curling like wheat in wind before opening up as if begging despite being too late. “Shang Xi would weep if he’d saw what you’ve become, Aresina!”

It’s clear from his disgusting accent that he hasn’t spoken Pandaren in a long time. All tainted with common like dung swiped across the beautiful canvas of their shared home.

His obnoxious words are true though. Yes, Master Shang Xi would weep. He’d weep and Aresina would comfort him.

Tears of joy.

“Lok’tar ogar.”

Because of how much she’s finally come to understand herself.

“For the Horde!”


End file.
